Will sawmill pay for itself?

[Typhoon]

I have a question...and I know the answer depends on so many things. But I am merely looking for an "average". My dad and I are buying a Norwood Lumbermate. Our total investment is going to be around 8k or so. Our main reason for doing this, is to have a hobby for dad and I to do together. He is retiring in a few weeks, and we have always wanted to mill wood. However, making some extra money on the side is a great benefit too. If we are just "weekend sawyers", i.e. not sawing 8 hrs/day, but just when we have the time, how long can a guy usually expect payback on the mill investment? Again just an average.. I am asking this because I can only assume that most of you that bought mills were wondering the same thing when you bought yours. Thanks for any input you can give. Also, will most jobs be just milling trees for people, or actually selling the finished product from logs I have acquired? What is your experience? Thanks!
-Brad

 

[woodsrunner]

This doesn't really answer your question

BUT, if this is something for you and your dad to do together, that is payout enough IMO. When my kids were at home here on the farm we spent alot of money on their 4-H and FFA beef cattle projects. We managed to make it a break even deal most of the time, but even if we had never gotten a penny back it was one of the most valuable things we ever did as a family. It allowed us to teach the kids the value of hard work and keep them involved in agriculture and spend countless hours with them doing something we all enjoyed as a family.

However, back to your original question, marketing for small business ventures is always a very tricky thing. (Marketing a service or a product?) If you want to try to generate revenues to offset costs or even make some profit, you have to do a lot of thinking and studying before hand. You will need to look for market niches you can fit into with your situation. Then crunch the numbers and see what the bottom line is.

If you and your dad want to do it, go for it. Life is short and the time you and he spend together sawing will be something money can't buy or replace.

Scott

 

[BobL]

No single Norwood owner can tell you what the average is. What you have to ask each owner is, have they have they recovered the value of the mill and if yes how long did it take them? These kinds of surveys have a major problem and that is only those that have or a well on their way to recovery of cost are likely to reply. The owner that bought a Norwood 2 years ago and has lost interest is unlikely even to be on the forum.

You could be hard nosed and work out a complete business plan - how may board ft, hrs in the day and cost of consumables and beer but that would be spoiling the fun.

I agree with woodsrunner, anything you can do with your dad is priceless..... just do it!

 

[woodguy105]

Portable mill?

Hey you guys,

Not trying to hijack the thread...are most of you running portable mills?

Going to where the wood is vs. getting it to your site may make offer more potential business to pay off the mill sooner?>>

Rob

 

[Brmorgan]

Depends on what you'll be cutting, I guess. If just structural 2Xs for framing houses, it'll take a lot longer as there isn't nearly as much value per board foot. However I've read accounts of folks making a small fortune in one day cutting up prize Walnut logs, or some highly figured Cherry or Maple etc. You're in an area where the possibility of working with logs like that exists (unlike me ), so depending on how you structure your business/hobby, the potential is definitely there to pay off the mill and much more.

I think the trick is finding your niche in an economy like we're in. Fortunately (or unfortunately) a great number of the big mills are closing their doors, some for good, which could result in a lot of opportunities for small operations to start up. At least that's what I'm hoping to do with the bandmill that's coming in my near future - there are hardly any big mills running up here anymore that cut Douglas Fir beams or specialty Cedar products, so hopefully there will be a demand I can fill.

Maybe try to hook up with a local Arborist or yard-maintenance company, whereby they could refer a customer to you if they had a tree they would rather have milled on-site than have it bucked for firewood or hauled away. You could also talk to some local woodwork / cabinet shops to see if they would be interested in buying local wood from you rather than a big lumberyard, and if so what they would be willing to pay. In that case, proper drying would be paramount though. Just a couple ideas.

 

[oldsaw]

Like these guys have said, it isn't a question you can just answer. If payback is important, you need to figure out what products are marketable for profit. Commodity products like 2x4s as mentioned won't really cut it. However, get into some local woods and make things with the wood or find someone else who will, and you could have something. Whatever you do, one of you is going to have to sell it to someone. If you have craft shows locally, you can make cutting boards, boxes, picture frames, and other things to sell, labeling them as "locally grown and built". Finished product will reap more profit than just wood.

If you want to sell just lumber, focus on interesting species and pieces such as highly figured, quarter sawn oaks and sycamore, figured maple, well cathedraled ash, spalted woods, etc. Learn how to cut for maximum value by learning how to read a log and adjust your sawing plan on the run to change with the realities of the log.

So, the real question, is one of you a salesman? Is your Dad willing to invest some time and effort into identifying markets and things you can produce to add value to the wood. You will also need a good supply of wood. As mentioned, you can hook up with a tree service, but yard trees can hold "surprises" of a metallic nature and often have more sapwood than a tree from the woods. Be prepared, get a metal detector and use it often.

Your potential is whatever you can make of it. If it's just going to be milling and selling wood, find someone who wants to buy stuff that you can profit on. You benefit from rarity, uniqueness, quantity, quality, selection, and a broad customer base. All take work.

Mark

 

[Typhoon]

Thanks guys! This is just the kind of stuff I am looking for. I should have added that I have 45 acres of timber. That will help with some initial logs. Also, my best friend is a well known local carpenter, who also builds custom furniture, cabinets, etc. He also has a full working woodshop. So he will be a big help. He has a tendency (like he did when we built our log home) to do alot of custom finish woodwork... like oak trim, walnut trim, etc. I think he will be a big asset. He has even mentioned possibly going in as a third party on this. I am looking forward to this, I have wanted to mill wood since I was a young boy. I think we are ordering our lumbermate May 1st. Along with it, I am going to get the log loading package, blade sharpener, blade setter, and 10 blades. I have a 40hp 4x4 tractor with a loader and pallet forks that I think will be almost necessary. I will post pics here as soon as it arrives. For those of you who have bought a bandsaw mill, are there any other tools/items that you can think of that I may need? Oh and we have a metal detector. Thanks again for your time.
-Brad

 

[Typhoon]

Oh and I also meant to ask, is there anything that can be done with black gum logs? I have about 20 huge, perfectly straight ones in my woods that I am cutting down soon. Could these be of any use as some kind of lumber?

 

[Backwoods]

Just a heads up on the number of bands that you plan to order. I keep a min of 50 bands in stock. You can use up 10 bands in a three day weekend pretty easily. 20 would give you a little more flexibility. Local woods are always a good market for specialty lumber, just don’t start buying logs, unless they are really exceptional logs and you have a use or market for them and they are cheap. The free variety will find there way to you as time goes by. I find that being portable is my biggest asset as a custom milling sawmill. Sure, you work out in the weather rather then under cover like a stationary mill, but I find it easier for me to market my services rather then lumber. I target the customers that have more then a 1,000 bft but am also willing to take my mill out to the person that just has one small log to be milled. $8,000 @ .25 bft is 32,000bft. The time that it will take you to line up that much wood for milling and to find the time to mill it is the big question. You could do it in less than a month, or it could take several years. However even if you never cut that much wood and just use the trees off your own place for your own use, and you get many years of working along side your dad you could consider it as having paid for it self many times over. My dad passed away about a year after he retired while I was working 12 hour shifts 7 days a week in the big mill, so be sure to enjoy every day that you can with your dad as you never know how many you will have together and get several pee-vees to roll the logs with.

 

[redprospector]

My Dad died 3 years ago in July.
The minute you finish milling the first log with your Dad, that mill has paid for itself in my opinion.

Andy

 

[Wismer]

My Lumbermate is 1.5 years old and already paid for itself... not in terms of pure cash but portability of making one trip into the hunt camp with the mill, instead of 50 trips with the atv and trailer bringing lumber in. I have milled my own logs for trim and flooring in the house and it is so handy to be building something and just go and mill a true 1x3, so much easy than running to the store and you can mill anything you need, not what the store has on hand. If you have 45 acres of timber I think it's a no brainer? It is priceless to be able to build things out of lumber you have taken from tree to finished product, same with living in a house that is built or finished from lumber you produced.

 

[arbadacarba]

We have one of the first Woodmizers and it is still going strong. Go slow, cut for grade, learn how to recognize trunk patterning for good curl etc. and you will be amazed at how fast you can pay off your investment. Going to buy another Woodmizer for custom cuting beams from unwanted logs in the next two years - I figure two months to pay it off doing post and beam timbers and the rest is gravy. To give you an idea how fast it can go, I have a kitchen done entirely in spalted maple. Cost for wood from the store would have been about $30,000 cdn. Cost for doing it myself was fifteen gallons of gas and four blades. -approximately $100 cdn. Logs were all rejects for " rotting" also known as spalting.